Sunday, 28 October 2012

Where Only Beavers Fly

(The D.H. Gazette travels the bush routes.)

The Central African Airways solution to the problem of linking remote
communities which possess
only strip landing groundsIn

1950 Central African Airways Corporation sought a means of extending the
network of their special air services in Central Africa without increasing the
cost of their operation. This network, on which twin-engined aircraft were then
being used, linked certain remote districts in Rhodesia and Nyasaland and served
the European inhabitants whose numbers were too small to allow for a full- scale
commercial operation. Although it had been understood from the beginning that
these services would have to run without hope of profit, it was clear that any
extension to the system would render costs unacceptably high. Thus it became
imperative to find an aircraft which would be capable of carrying the expected
traffic at minimum cost, and yet would offer maximum reliability whilst using
small, rough aerodromes.

The answer appeared to lie in the use of a single-engined aeroplane, provided
that a number of essential requirements were satisfied. These were, basically,
that the aircraft chosen should be powered by the most reliable and fully
developed engine available: that it should have good handling qualities at low
air speeds to enable contact flying to be carried out in bad weather conditions:
that the take-off run should be short and the climb-away steep to permit the use
of small bush airstrips that the landing speed should be low, and the emergency
landing characteristics good: also that the aircraft should be equipped with
exits on both sides.

Central African Airways found that the Beaver, built by de Havilland of
Canada, and powered by the
well-tried Pratt and Whitney Wasp Junior engine, complied well with all these
requirements. The range of the aircraft in standard form, and the cruising speed
of 140 m.p.h., were suitable for all stage lengths, and the capacity payload of
1,3201b. which could be carried on any stage appeared more than adequate for the requirements.

After careful comparative study the Beaver was selected. The cabin interior
was redesigned by C.A.A., and two rear hammock-type seats were introduced which
could be folded to give a greater freight capacity than on standard aircraft:
six passengers may be accommodated with this layout if less luggage is carried.
The modification work was carried out by de Havilland of Canada before delivery
of the aircraft.

The introduction of the first Beaver in 1951 was an immediate success. To-day
the Central African Airways fleet of five Beavers, which now operate two
separate networks, have brought an end to the isolation of the European
inhabitants of 23 remote African towns.

This is another example of operating conditions whose peculiar suitability to
the Beaver can best be shown in photographs. The de Havilland Gazette seized a
recent opportunity to fly the routes and report on them from direct
experience.

Sesheke, a remote Barotseland village with four European inhabitants, is served twice a week by the Beavers of the Northern Rhodesian network. The airfield, in common with most of the aerodromes from which the Beavers operate, is a rudimentary strip, hacked from the bush in the direction of the prevailing wind. Pilots who stay overnight at Sesheke taxy their aircraft round the perimeter before taking off to frighten away the lion which are frequently to be seen on the aerodrome at dawn.

A herd of buffalo stampedes as a Beaver of the Northern Rhodesian service en route for Barotseland passes low over the River Kafue between Lusaka and Mankoya. Barotseland is native country comprising the major part of Northern Rhodesia, but a handful of European officials live in each of the larger villages: they rely on the Beavers for their food, mail, and personal transport. The distances between these centres are not great, but to build roads linking them would be difficult and uneconomical. In the centre of Barotseland lies the Barotse Plain, 100 miles of the Zambezi valley which is flooded to a width of 30 miles in the rainy season and covered by great areas of marshland when the flood water has subsided.

Mail is unloaded from the Beaver at Mankoya in Northern Rhodesia. The payload on this flight included a theodolite for the Public Works Department and a spring for an immobilised car at Mongu: vaccines for the doctor at Kalabo; despatches for the Government officials at Senanga; and fresh meat, mail, newspapers, and shot-gun cartridges for the Europeans in each of the villages at which the Beaver called. The aircraft carry emergency equipment comprising a two-gallon tank of drinking water and a shot-gun with a selection of cartridges which would enable an unlucky pilot either to shoot buck for food or to defend himself against bigger game.

The fire station on the edge of the aerodrome at Mongu, in the centre of the Barotse Plain. Mongu aerodrome is built on high ground to escape flooding in the wet season: for six months of the year during the floods the Beavers provide the only means of contact, apart from the native canoes, between Mongu and the remainder of the territory. The rainy season in Barotseland brings cumulonimbus cloud, with frequent thunderstorms, but the flying conditions at all times of the year subject the aircraft to hot, bumpy air up to 12,000 or 15,000 ft., causing pilots and passengers alike to remark thankfully upon the sturdy all metal construction of the Beaver

First Officer Church carries out an inspection of his aircraft
after a night-stop at Mongu, the provincial capital of Barotseland,
which is linked directly by the Beaver services with Lusaka and
Livingstone. Mongu is a large village with a European community of
115, who rely upon the Beavers for the prompt delivery of their
mail, medical supplies, technical equipment and fresh produce.
Travel by road from Mongu to Lusaka, the nearest large town, is
possible only in the dry season, and takes two days of hard driving:
the Beaver service operates three times a week the year round and
covers the distance in a little over three hours. Mongu aerodrome
has the only made-up runway in Barotseland: it is built from more
than two million bricks, which are held in place by dried mud.

The Beaver arrives at Kalabo, the seat of the most westerly
administrative district of the Barotse province. Mongu, the
territory's provincial headquarters, and a town with which ready
contact must he maintained, lies across the Zambezi, a difficult
two-day ride by car but a mere 25 minutes by Beaver. Refuelling and
passenger bookings at Kalabo are the responsibility of Mrs. Withers,
the C.A.A. agent and wife of the local District Commissioner: the
twice-weekly arrival of the Beaver enables her, and the handful of
other European inhabitants, to read an up-to-date newspaper and to
enjoy a fresh loaf oj bread from the nearest bakery at Lusaka, 350
miles and a morning's flight away. These luxuries, unobtainable by
any other means, are brought to her regularly by one of the Beaver
captains, First Officer Bill Church: this custom has inevitably
become known at Kalabo as " the Church service

The informality of the C.A.A. Beaver services is captured in this
photograph of a mid-afternoon halt at Senanga, 80 miles south of
Mongu. Fifteen minutes on the ground give the pilot and his
passengers time to drink a cup of tea at the aerodrome restaurant —
which, at Senanga, takes the form of a chair standing in the shade —
before taking off' again to fly along the Zambezi to Sesheke and
Livingstone. At the smaller aerodromes in the Barotseland network,
where there is no permanent C.A.A. staff, the pilot must take care
of all bookings, collect fare money, check load- sheets, and—as the
picture shows—pour out the tea for his passengers.

Good forward visibility and a low approach speed are essential when coming in to land at Senanga aerodrome, typical of the short airstrips throughout the C.A.A. Beaver networks. The airfield terminal building, being a small mud hut, is not visible in this photograph: the village jail, however, being more of a place, may be seen on the perimeter of the aerodrome. The airstrip at Senanga is cut from the bush in the direction of the prevailing wind, but frequent cross-windlandings nevertheless have to be made, imposing a further strain on undercarriages already severely tested by the rough surfaces.

A typical Beaver passenger: this little girl, already at eight
years of age an experienced air traveller, flew 200 miles in an
afternoon to return to school at Livingstone. On board the same
aircraft was a French girl missionary who was visiting a Livingstone
dentist and returning to Senanga by Beaver on the following day: her
round trip might well have taken a week by road. Other regular
Beaver users include government servants and public works officials,
missionaries on their rounds, and African chiefs travelling from
their villages to attend legislative council meetings held in
the towns.

The flight from Sesheke to Livingstone, which occupies sixty
minutes and costs a modest seventy- one shillings, contains some of
the most striking scenery in the whole of Africa and enables
passengers to see a wide variety of animal life. Over most of its
length the route follows the course of the Zambezi, and the Beaver
pilots, quick to locate the game which abounds along the banks of
the river, are kept busy pointing out elephants, crocodiles, giraffe
and an occasional lion to the eager passengers. The approach to
Livingstone Airport, the southern terminal of the Northern Rhodesian
feeder-service network, takes the Beavers over Victoria Falls,
discernible from many miles away by the cloud of spray which rises
600 ft. into the air as 75 million gallons of water each minute pour
over the brink into the river 350 ft. below.

Terminal halt: a Beaver is loaded with freight at Chileka
Aerodrome, Blantyre, 2,500 ft. above sea level. The airport
restaurant chef looks on. Blantyre, the headquarters of the southern
province of Nyasaland, is the terminal of the Nyasaland
feeder-service; it was from here, early in J951, that Captain J. A.
C. Florence, the local C.A.A. Manager, introduced the Corporations
first scheduled Beaver operations, with a weekly run to Mzimba,
half-way up Lake Nyasa. This was the first time that regular land or
air communications had been extended not towards beyond Lilongwe,
near the southern end of the lake, and this new service enabled the
pace of development of the country to be substantially
increased.To-day the Beavers operate from Blantyre daily to
Lilongwe, three times aweek to Mzuzu, and twice weekly up the
western lakeside to Mbeya, across the Tanganyika border beyond the
northern tip of the Lake. The road from Blantyre to Mbeya is open
only in the dry season, and the journey by road takes more than a
week: the scheduled Beaver service covers the distance in eight
hours and includes a number of stops at the principal villages on
the route.

A native village on the shore of Lake Nyasa, on the Beaver's route from the terminal of the service at Blantyre to Lilongwe and Salima. Salima is the principal lakeside tourist centre, and the Beavers bring both guests and their food to the village's two hotels. The Beaver route extends northwards from Salima over broken country to Kasungu and Mzimba, and thence across the 5,000ft. peaks of the Vipya mountain range to Mzuzu. From Mzuzu the aircraft turn eastwards to avoid the high Nyika plateau, always covered by cloud, and after calling at Karonga turn north again to Mbeya, flying alongside mountains reaching up to 10,800 ft. Unpredictable violent lake storms are frequently encountered on this sector, which takes the aircraft over country with an annual rainfall of 145 inches. The aerodrome at Mbeya, in Tanganyika, the northern terminal of the service, is 6,000 ft. above sea level, and this altitude, combined with a high ambient temperature, calls for a brisk take-off performance from the heavily-laden Beavers.

The Beavers call twice a week at Karonga, in Nyasaland. Few aircraft other than the Beaver could use Karonga, which is 1,550 ft. above sea level and one of the shortest airstrips in the area. The pilot attracts the attention of the part-time aerodrome staff by circling the village before landing at the nearby airstrip, and the arrival of the aircraft always draws a crowd of interested Africans. The introduction of the Beaver services has removed the fear of isolation for the eight Europeans living in Karonga, whose mail from England, which previously tool six weeks to deliver, can now arrive in three or four days.

The aerodrome at Mzuzu, the headquarters of the northern province
of Nyasaland, which is served three times a week by the Beavers. Now
that the European officials resident in such villages as Mzuzu have
a frequent link with the large towns they are happier to stay in a
geographically remote area, and prospective newcomers are more
likely to settle. The flying time between Mzuzu and Mbeya, the
nearest town, is less than two hours, and the air fare — £6 10s. —
works out at about 8d. a mile, compared with the minimum cost of 1s.
3d. a mile for overland transport.

Frequent veld fires, emitting dense clouds of smoke which rise
high in the air, are an additional navigational hazard to flying
over poorly-mapped territory in which landmarks are few and radio
aids are negligible. The possibility of making a successful forced
landing on any of the C.A.A. feeder routes is remote, and under such
conditions the aircraft employed must be highly reliable as well as
having excellent handling characteristics at low speeds to permit
contact flying in poor visibility. The Beavers are always operated
under Visual Flight Rules, and C.A.A. have laid down that no flying
should take place if the forward visibility is less than three miles
or the cloud base lower than 500ft.

Typical of the country over which the Nyasaland Beaver services
operate is the 6,000ft. high Livingstonia escarpment, near Karonga,
in the northern province of the Protectorate on the route between
Blantyre and Mbeya. The only alternative link with civilisation for
the 200 European inhabitants of the northern province is the snaky
road which may be discerned in the photograph: on this particular
stretch it rises from a height of 1,550 ft. to 6,000ft. in one mile
and includes numerous acute hairpin bends on which even the smallest
cars are forced to reverse. The road journey from Karonga to
Blantyre (and the nearest chemist's shop) five days: the Beavers
take less than three hours. The introduction of the is bringing
about a rapid development of the country's vast natural resources,
and the aircraft are always filled with passengers and
urgently-required stores in the shape of food, medicine, and
motor-car spares: as a Karonga Government official remarked, "
People up country exist only through the Beavers."

Six hours and twenty minutes after taking off from Mbeya, 500
miles to the north, the Beaver arrives at Blantyre, having called at
six of the principal centres in Nyasaland on the way. The African
ground-staff are already busy unloading and cleaning R.M.A. Duiker
before the captain has left his aircraft. The C.A.A. Beavers all
bear the names of African game animals: others include Eland, Kudu
and hnpala. Blantyre, the southern terminal of the Nyasaland Beaver
service, is a modem airport which handles also the Viscount, Viking
and Dakota aircraft operated by C.A.A. The aerodrome stands 2,500
ft. above sea level, beside a mountain range which rises a further
3,500 ft.: heavy thunderstorms occur during the rainy season, and at
other times of the year visibility is frequently affected by the
Chiperone, a heavy mist which can remain for several days.

End

Extracted and recompiled, by Eddy Norris,
from the de Havilland
Gazette No.98, April 1957 publication which was made available by
Dave Vermaak (Air Rhodesia)

Your article ‘Where only Beavers Fly’ grabbed my attention because my father played a part in clearing the bush and constructing the Mzuzu airfield in the early 1950s. There was no large earth moving equipment in those days and it was all done with a Fordson half-track with a front blade and Massey Ferguson tractors with a blade on the back. The airfield was inspected by the Ministry of civilian aviation, and it was a Beaver that was the first aircraft to land on the airfield.

I have 16mm film (converted to DVD) that my father took of the airfield’s construction and the subsequent flight which flew over the Nyika plateau down to Nkhata Bay on the lake and back to Mzuzu.

My father worked on a Tung oil estate just outside Mzuzu. Just as an aside, the bush cleared for the Tung trees was done with two caterpillar tractors and an anchor chain attached between them. This was a similar bush clearing process used at the time of Kariba being built.

Thanks for the extracts re the Beavers - my dad flew them extensively '56/'57 - we had many hours of cine film taken of the various places in Zim right up thru to Tanzania but sadly time is not kind to the film and what little is left has been put onto video and soon to disc. The family hold those bush pilot years and the Beavers in very high esteem! Good to see pics of Bill Church in his youth!

Roundabout the late 50's , an Umtali / Salisbury air service was initiated also using Beavers. As Dad had to travel to Salisbury frequently for clients he made use of this service. Grand Reef was used, not Perrems strip which was considered unsafe, so the trip out to the airstrip took some time.

I can vividly remember one morning the whole family left Umtali in the dark to take Dad to Grand Reef, arriving about 6.30. We watched the aircraft taxi and then take off. When the Beaver was about 10' into the air, the violent crosswind Grand Reef was notorious for blew up and we watched horrified as the one wingtip touched the ground. We fully expected to see a somersaulting crash and words cant express our relief to see the Beaver wobble back into the air and climb out towards Salisbury, clearly a skilled and experienced pilot at the controls. Having got our hearts back from our mouths a very subdued family set off for Umtali and school .As far as I can recollect Dad never used that air service again and reverted to good old Rhodesian Railways overnight service..

The only time I used Grand Reef was when Frank Batte was teaching us crosswind landings, which were not a lot of fun for me. Personally I much preferred Perrems strip, although you had to make sure you had climbed well clear of the church spire before making your first turn.............

Don’t know how I missed it on the day it was sent, I have just read the story of the Beaver in Northern Rhodesia.I was absolutely fascinated.A really well written article with excellent pics.Once again, thank you for all you do in keeping our memories alive.

Thank you for the memories. Strangely it was only the other day that I was telling a friend about being in the passenger seat when the cross wind was underestimated at Senanga and the resulting in a very interesting landing! My father (DG Brown) was DC Kalabo from 1951 to 1955 and my mother (Hester) was the CAA agent. Baggage was weighed on the hook of a Salter scale and if there was a danger of overloading the passengers had to dangle from it too! She used to give the pilots sacks of limes and tell them off for letting me take over the controls which I did for almost all my six flights a year to and from school. The beaver at Kalabo in your picture would have been VP-YJD. VP-YIS and VP-YIM were also on the Barotse route. Later when I was a DA at Mankoya I used to assist the DC's wife (Mavis Morgan) who was the CAA Agent. Our butter, cheese and a decent cut of meat would be flown up weekly from the Cold Storage Board in Lusaka. I miss that wonderful aircraft with its distinctive powerful sound, wonderful pilots, investigating game and buzzing the Catholic fathers mission after taking off from Senanga.